Method and apparatus for remotely booting a computer system

摘要

A method and apparatus of remotely booting a target computer system from a host computer system over a communication medium comprises exchanging messages between the host and target computer systems. The host computer system controls the remote booting and communicates the initial booting request to the target computer system. The target computer system may respond by communicating to the host computer system whether it will boot. During booting, the target computer system transitions between a polling or stopped state and an interrupt-driven state by transitioning both a target operating system and network hardware in the target computer system between the polling and interrupt-driven states.